8210 wk 3 discussion

. Response 1 Cherie McElroy-Burch

RE: Discussion - Week 3 Attachment

COLLAPSE

General Social Survey Dataset

According to Frankfort-Nachmias et al. (2020), measures of central tendency describe the average or typical distribution of a dataset. An analysis was conducted on two variables from The General Social Survey dataset. The General Social Survey is a survey that monitors and studies the trends in behavior, attitudes, and practices of United States residents.(NORC, n.d.). The data collected includes information such as respondent’s age, citizenship, sexual orientation and more. A histogram was created to report the descriptive analysis of the respondents family income, while a pie chart was created to report the analysis of the respondents race.

Descriptive Analysis of Family Income in Constant $

Frankfort-Nachmias et al. (2020) notes a histogram is used to show the differences in percentages or frequencies in categories with an ordinal or interval-ratio level of measurement.

A histogram was used to analyze the variable labeled Family Income in Constant $. Considered as a continuous variable, the level of measurement is interval-ratio. Frankfort-Nachmias et al. (2020) asserts that an interval-ratio level of measurement is a variable that can be rank-ordered, and the measurements must be equally spaced. This dataset shows that 2,314 respondents provided an answer to this question., and 224 respondents did not provide an answer. The mean of this dataset is 33,965.68, the mode is 31,928, and the median is 21,285.00. The mean family income in constant $ is 33,965 indicating that the average income of the respondents fell below the national average of 50,200 in 2009 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2010). This also suggests that the sample is not representative of the population. The mean is referred to as the center of gravity of distribution because it incorporates all scores (Frankfort-Nachmias et al., 2020). Because the mean incorporates all scores into the calculation, it is sensitive to extreme scores in the distribution. Therefore, it is my belief that using the mean is the best measure for central tendency in this dataset. The differences in the mean, median, and mode suggest that the variable is not normally distributed and this is also indicated in the curve shown in Figure 1. The curve is slightly pulled to the left. The standard deviation for Family Income in Constant $ is 35,537.075, and relatively close to the mean. This suggests that most of the reported incomes are fairly similar. This is also evident in Figure 1. The range of the data set is 134,581, while the minimum is 237 and the maximum is 134,817. While the spread of the range is great, it is not a true indicator of the income of the respondents.

Figure 1

Family Income in Constant $

Descriptive Analysis of Race of Respondent

Frankfort-Nachmias et al. (2020) asserts that a pie chart is used to display the differences in frequencies or percentages in categories with a nominal or ordinal level of measurement. The slices of the pie chart represent the proportion of the total in each category (Wagner, 2020). A pie chart was chosen to display the data because it displays the percentages of the race of respondents in an easy-to-read visual display. The race of respondent is considered a categorical variable. The level of measurement used is nominal. According to Frankfort-Nachmias et al. (2020), a nominal level of measurement uses numbers or symbols to categorize the data for the purpose of naming, labeling, or classifying the observations. The data communicates that there were 2,538 participants in this dataset that provided responses to the question, and none missing. The mode is 1 which is supported by the pie graph showing that the group with the highest frequency is the white group. Out of 2,538 respondents, there were 1,890 respondents that selected white, while 386 selected black, and 262 selected other. This suggests that there was a lack of variability and thus the groups are not equally distributed. The data collected from the dataset can be used to address racial disparities. In The majority of respondents to this survey were white. The data suggests that other races were underrepresented. The results of the data does not show the true habits, behavior, and attitudes of U.S. residents. This can affect access to healthcare, education, employment, and more. A potential research question this variable may help to answer and drive social change is to what extent does race affect income?

Figure 2

Race of Respondent

References

Frankfort-Nachmias, C., Leon-Guerrero, A., & Davis, G. (2020). Social statistics for a diverse society (9th ed.). Sage Publications.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2010). Median household income, by state: Selected years, 1990 through 2009. Nces.Ed.Gov. Retrieved June 14, 2022, from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/tables/dt10_025.asp

NORC at The University of Chicago. (n.d.). Get GSS Data | NORC. Https://Gss.Norc.Org. Retrieved June 12, 2022, from https://gss.norc.org/get-the-data

Wagner, III, W. E. (2020). Using IBM® SPSS® statistics for research methods and social science statistics (7th ed.). Sage Publications. . Letitia Melvin

Response 2.

Monique Bibbins RE: Discussion - Week 3 Attachment

COLLAPSE

Descriptive analysis for a continuous variable

According to Frankfort-Nachmias et al., 2020, researchers incorporate central tendency and variability measures to describe their data distribution effectively. Since 1972, the General Social Survey (GSS) has provided politicians, policymakers, and scholars with a clear and unbiased perspective on what American society. The GSS collects data on contemporary American society to monitor and explain trends in opinions, attitudes and behaviors (University of Chicago, About the GSS). The General Social Survey dataset provided responses from N=507 participants with a mean of 45967.22. A continuous variable is defined as a variable can take an uncountable set of values or infinite set of values (Byjus, 2020). Data from the general social survey labeled (CONRINC) falls under a continuous variable and contains information from 310 participants, out of which 197 missing.

Table 1 below provides us with the mean of 45967.2, the better measure for central tendency is the median 33255.00 and a mode of 40645. In this display, the standard deviation calculates at 41388.340 indicating 68% of the participants’ reported income is between 0 and 41388.340.

Table 1.

.

The data from figure 1 below, indicates a positive skewness of 1.496. A positively skewed distribution with the tail on its right side with a positive distribution greater than 0 (What is skewness in Statistics?: Statistics for data science 2020). As figure 1 depicts, the value of mean is the greatest one followed by median and then by mode.

Figure 1

.

Descriptive analysis for a categorical variable

Descriptive statistics is used to analyze data for a single categorical variable include frequencies, percentages, fractions and/or relative frequencies obtained from the variable's frequency distribution table (Introduction to statistics: Descriptive Statistics 2021). The General Social Survey dataset provided data in Table 2 below shows, the frequency distribution for race of participants. In this survey, participants identify themselves as one of three race categories: white at 66.9%, black 83.2 %, other 100 %. A pie chart is chosen because it is visually simpler than other types of graphs and is easier to check of the reasonableness or accuracy of calculations. According to Table 2, the data describes of 507 participants, all participants answered.

The pie graph (Figure 2) below, clearly delineates the whites as the largest group, which depicts an uneven distribution of variability. This data may affect social change in future research, if data is collected from more diverse communities.

Table 2

Figure 2

References

Byjus. (2020, January 6). Continuous variable - types, examples and discrete variables. BYJUS. https://byjus.com/maths/continuous-variable/

Curtin University Library. (2021). Introduction to statistics: Descriptive Statistics. LibGuides. https://libguides.library.curtin.edu.au/uniskills/numeracy-skills/statistics/descriptive#:~:text=Descriptive%20statistics%20used%20to%20analyse,the%20variable's%20frequency%20distribution%20table.

Frankfort-Nachmias, C., Leon-Guerrero, A., & Davis, G. (2020). Social statistics for a diverse High School Longitudinal society (9th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Walden University Blackboard. https://class.waldenu.edu.

University of Chicago. (n.d.). About the GSS. NORC. https://gss.norc.org/About-The-GSS

What is skewness in Statistics?: Statistics for data science. Analytics Vidhya. (2020, December 23). https://www.analyticsvidhya.com/blog/2020/07/what-is-skewness-statistics/#:~:text=A%20positively%20skewed%20distribution%20is,median%20and%20then%20by%20mode.